Hall v. Cole’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
943 federal appellate · 238 district · 319 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,748 later decisions (47 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Hensley v. Eckerhart (1983), Alyeska Pipeline Service Company v. Wilderness Society (1975)
943 federal appellate · 238 district · 319 state decisions — followed in 32 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedCole v. Hall (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co. · Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. · J. I. Case Co. v. Borak · Sprage v. Ticonic Nat Bank
Cited together with Alyeska Pipeline Service Company v. Wilderness Society · Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co. · F. D. Rich Co. v. United States Ex Rel. Industrial Lumber Co. · Fleischmann Distilling Corp. v. Maier Brewing Co. · Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 2,748 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the plaintiff's successful litigation confers 'a substantial benefit on the members of an ascertainable class, and where the court's jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit makes possible an award that will operate to spread the costs proportionately among them.'”
162 later decisions quote this exact passage“overriding considerations indicate the need for such a recovery.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage“'because much of the bill was written on the floor of the Senate or House of Representatives and because many sections contain calculated ambiguities or political compromises . . . , the courts would be well advised to seek out the underlying rationale without placing great emphasis on close construction of the words.'”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.